The clever team at EMMA has come up with yet another tongue-twister name with the PisdiYAUwot metal distortion pedal. According to the EMMA website, the name loosely translates to “contraption,” though they’re quick to point out that this is a contraption that really works. But what is the PisdiYAUwot? While the typical gain or boost pedal will give you more sustain and distortion, and a fuzz box will sing, none of them were designed for metal. The flubby bottom end and lack of low-end clarity usually rules them out for speed metal or any music that requires that speedy, chugging, sharp attack on the low strings. The PisdiYAUwot is a metal pedal designed to produce super-tight and super-fast distortion that cuts through with great definition.

In Design
The PisdiYAUwot comes in the standard EMMA aluminum box (approximately 3 ½”x 4 ½”) with a badass skull and lightning bolt graphic and two red LEDs that light up like eyes when you engage the effect. A total of five controls cover Level, Bass, Mid, Treble, and Gain. Input and Output jacks are on the top front of the pedal with a 9VDC input between them. You can also power it with a 9V battery, accessed by four Phillips machine screws on the back panel. The pedal uses Emma’s “Untrue Bypass” circuit, a buffered bypass that the manual says is “way better” sounding.

In Play
I set up the PisdiYAUwot with a Krank Rev Jr. Pro half stack and a Les Paul to run it through its paces. With the Krank dialed up to a warm clean tone I used one of the sample settings in the manual and let it rip. It was clear from the first note that this is definitely a metal pedal. The sharp and brutal attack was both punishing and tight, and I could see the real purpose of the pedal coming through loud and clear. If you’re into old school metal like early Metallica or any of the metal bands from around the world in the early ‘80s, this one is for you. It has a very metallic sound to it that can either be played up or tucked back. My preference was to pull the treble down and keep the mids higher for a thick and powerful tone. Cutting the mids and boosting the treble and bass got me very close to Vulgar Display Of Power Dimebag tones. No matter the setting it was always solid, searing and powerful, with more gain than you’d ever need.

Switching to a Strat, I was astonished at how much chunk and clarity came out of those low-output single-coils. With a blindfold on, most would be hard-pressed to pick it out as a Strat—it sounded nothing like any I’d ever heard. The range in the EQ is quite wide and they are very interactive, but the overall signature sound is always present. I was even able to dial up convincing UFO-era Schenker tones despite playing single-coils!

The Verdict
If you want tight, screaming, and fast metal tones look no further than the PisdiYAUwot. It took a tame clean tone to over-the-top metal and turned single-coils into motherbuckers—and that’s no easy task.

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